Teen mental health in the Beach Cities has improved sharply since 2021 and is still a serious concern. In 2024, 25% of 11th graders in Hermosa Beach, Manhattan Beach, and Redondo Beach reported chronic sadness or hopelessness, down from 46% three years earlier. About 1 in 15 seventh and ninth graders said they had seriously considered suicide. And local teens drink more than their peers: 16% of 11th graders, against 10% across Los Angeles County.
Those figures come from the Beach Cities Health District Community Health Report 2025 to 2028, published in January 2025. Its student data are from the California Healthy Kids Survey, given to 7th, 9th, and 11th graders in all three local school districts and averaged together.
If a young person you know is in crisis or talking about harming themselves, call or text 988 to reach the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, any time, or go to the nearest emergency room.
The numbers at a glance
| Beach Cities, 2024 | Los Angeles County | |
|---|---|---|
| Chronic sadness or hopelessness, 11th grade | 25% | 36% |
| Chronic sadness or hopelessness, 9th grade | 20% | 35% |
| Seriously considered suicide, 11th grade | 8% | 13% |
| Seriously considered suicide, 7th grade | 6% | 12% |
| Drank alcohol in the past 30 days, 11th grade | 16% | 10% |
| Binge drank in the past 30 days, 11th grade | 8% | 5% |
| Feel connected to school, 11th grade | 67% | 54% |
County figures are from the 2021 to 2023 survey period, the most recent the report had.
What has improved
The pandemic years were the low point, and the recovery since has been real.
- Chronic sadness has nearly halved among 11th graders. It was 46% in 2021 and 25% in 2024. Ninth graders went from 41% to 20%.
- Fewer students are considering suicide. Among 11th graders the share fell from 15% in 2021 to 8% in 2024. Among 9th graders it fell from 16% to 6%.
- Students here feel more connected to school. About two thirds of Beach Cities students at every grade surveyed say they feel connected to their school, compared with roughly 55% across the county. Connection to school is one of the things that protects a teenager.
On depression and suicidal thoughts, Beach Cities students now report lower rates than students across Los Angeles County and California.
Where the Beach Cities stand out: alcohol
Alcohol is the one area where local teens clearly exceed their peers.
- 16% of Beach Cities 11th graders drank in the past 30 days, compared with 10% in the county and 14% statewide.
- 8% reported binge drinking, five or more drinks in a row, compared with 5% in the county.
- 29% said alcohol is “very easy” to get. Two years earlier that figure was 43%.
Teen drinking has fallen by about half since 2018, when 34% of 11th graders reported it. But the report is direct about why it stays high. Adults in the Beach Cities drink 67% more per week than the national average, and only 31% do not drink at all, compared with 51% of American adults. The health district also notes that all three cities have more bars and liquor outlets per person than the county does. Teenagers are growing up in a place where drinking is ordinary.
That matters for mental health as well as safety. In our work, alcohol is often what a struggling teenager reaches for first, because it is available and because it works for an evening. When drinking and low mood show up together, they need to be looked at together, which is part of how we approach addiction treatment.
Why a comfortable community is not a protected one
Parents here sometimes assume that good schools, safe streets, and resources should add up to easier adolescence. The data do not support that. Nearly half of Beach Cities adults report significant daily stress, above the national average. Gallup, which runs the survey, says in the report that stress tends to fall as income rises and then climbs again in high-earning households.
Teenagers live inside that. The pressure in the South Bay’s schools is real, and so is the cost: 13% of Beach Cities 11th graders said they missed school in the past month because they had not slept enough. We wrote about how that pressure shows up in back-to-school anxiety, and about what Manhattan Beach families in particular bring to us.
As Jack Foley, LMFT, puts it:
“The teenagers I worry about in the South Bay are rarely the ones in obvious trouble. They are the ones holding a 4.0 and a varsity spot while quietly not sleeping, drinking on weekends, and telling no one. Good grades are not a mental health screening.”
What the numbers cannot tell you
These are averages across three school districts. They describe a community, and they cannot tell you how your own child is doing. A teenager can be in the 75% who are not chronically sad this year and still be struggling. What predicts whether a teen needs help is change: in sleep, in appetite, in friendships, in grades, in how much they talk to you.
It is also worth saying plainly that these are self-reports from students who chose to answer. The real figures could be higher or lower.
What parents can do
- Ask directly, including about suicide. If you are worried, ask in plain words. The National Institute of Mental Health is clear that asking someone whether they are having suicidal thoughts does not increase those thoughts.
- Treat drinking as a health question. In a community where adults drink more than average, it is easy to wave teen drinking off as a phase. Ask what it is doing for your teen, and notice whether it is tied to stress or low mood.
- Protect sleep before you protect grades. A teenager who is not sleeping will struggle with mood, focus, and judgment, whatever else is going on.
- Keep one unhurried conversation a week. Car rides and late evenings work better than a sit-down talk. The goal is to stay someone they can come to.
- Act on duration. A bad week is normal. A change that lasts more than two weeks, or that is getting worse, is a reason to bring in a professional.
If your teen is reluctant, our guide to helping your teen start therapy covers how to raise it, and what stays private between a teen and a therapist answers the question most teenagers ask first.
Where to turn in the South Bay
- 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. Call or text 988, any time, for any crisis.
- Crisis Text Line. Text 741741, any time. Many teenagers will text when they will not call.
- Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health Help Line. (800) 854-7771, for screening, crisis counseling, and referrals to county services.
- Beach Cities Health District referral line. (310) 374-3426, Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Staff help residents find the right local service.
- Your teen’s school counselor. Counselors see patterns across a whole class and can often tell you whether what you are seeing is typical.
- Outpatient therapy and psychiatry. For a teenager who is safe but struggling, weekly therapy with a clinician who works with adolescents is usually the right level of care, with a psychiatric evaluation when medication may be part of the picture.
- Residential treatment. For a teenager who needs more than outpatient care can give. More on this below.
When therapy and psychiatry are not enough
Most teenagers who need help do well with weekly therapy, sometimes alongside psychiatric care. Some do not, and it is better to say so early than to keep a teen in a level of care that is not holding them.
Outpatient care is probably not enough when:
- Your teen cannot reliably stay safe at home between sessions
- Self-harm or suicidal thinking is getting more frequent or more serious
- School has stopped altogether, and not for a week
- Drinking or drug use has moved past what a weekly appointment can interrupt
- Months of consistent therapy, and medication where appropriate, have not slowed the decline
None of these means anyone has failed. They mean the support needs to match the severity. Between weekly therapy and a hospital there are several steps: intensive outpatient programs that meet several days a week, day programs, and residential treatment, where a teen lives on site with 24-hour care.
Residential programs for adolescents exist here in the South Bay as well as elsewhere in Los Angeles, so a higher level of care does not have to mean sending a teenager far from home. A good program keeps teens in school while they are there and brings the family into the work.
We think of these programs as partners, not as the place a teen goes when outpatient care gives up. When one of our clients needs more, we say so plainly, help the family make the call, and share what we know with the program so the teen is not starting from nothing. When a teen comes home, the structure drops away quickly, and that is when relapse into old patterns is most likely. Weekly therapy, family work, and psychiatric follow-up are what hold the gains in place, and that is the part we do.
How we work with teens
At Bodhi Wellness Collective, teen therapy starts with the teenager, with parents kept appropriately informed. When the difficulty sits in the family as much as in the teen, family therapy brings everyone into the same room. We see teens in person at our Hermosa Beach office and by video across California, and we will tell you honestly if what your teen needs is more than weekly outpatient care.
A free 15-minute consultation is a low-pressure way to talk through what you are seeing.
References
- Beach Cities Health District, Community Health Report 2025 to 2028 (January 2025). Student data: California Healthy Kids Survey, 2018 to 2024. Adult data: Gallup National Health and Well-Being Index, 2023.
- National Institute of Mental Health, 5 Action Steps to Help Someone Having Thoughts of Suicide
- Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health, Help Line